If you read the script, and the character's got something in it that you relate to, then I am keen. But I really think, a lot of the time, my successful auditions are those where I really care about the characters.
Compared to dancing, films seemed to me to be the work of lay bums. There was no physical pain; it was enough to say and imagine what was in the script. It was very easy for me.
Most actors go, 'I read the script and fell in love with it'; I fall in love with the directors.
And that's what I really love, is finding a script and fantasizing and going to a different world and kind of portraying a character that is interesting. Because other lives interest us, that's why we read magazines like 'People' and try and fascinate and drool over what other people are doing.
And I tell ya, when I sit in that sound booth and started reading the script and starting to get into the character, man, it's an easy jump for me, because I understand what it's all about.
If I'm reading a script, and I'm not buying it, I need to be able to relate to the character on some level, and they need to have more than one dimension. I need to have an idea of what this guy's thinking about when he's taking a shower not on camera. And if I can't picture him taking a shower and getting dressed, then he's not a real person.
I'm doing another Churchill. I did a Churchill for HBO and that was up to 1939 and there's talk of the war years. They were going to do it this fall, but the script wasn't going to be ready.
And of course to work with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, and work with a wonderful, beautiful script directed by Nancy Meyers, it was really for me a dream come true.
I was asked to do a reading of 'G.B.F.' and I loved the script. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd read, but it took a year to get a green light for production.
Sometimes you read a script, and you just think, 'Wow, I would love to go and tell that story, and I don't even care what happens to the film, I would just love that experience.' And often, that mentality makes a great film.
If there is a book that the script came from you have to read it, you have to see what you can get out of it: mood, back story and things that may not even be in the film. They kick off your imagination and broaden the character, I think.
When you read a script, you get a feeling from it.
Why not provoke some thought and get people talking about things? I like characters that are flawed because we all are. When people break up in a script, you think, Oh, right, there must be tears shed here. But maybe the fact of the matter is that they're both laughing.
Whenever I'm offered something, I always read the script and meet the director. I still appreciate just being considered.
My very, very first professional job was when I was 19 years old - I got a job doing an educational industrial film on Shell Motor Oil's oil products. I really put my heart into it - I wrote a script for it, I did a lot of research.
I'm never certain of a performance - my own or the other actors' - or the script or anything... But to me it seems there's only one place in the world the camera can be, and the decision usually comes immediately.
I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me.
I found Hollywood pretty bruising and uncreative. The executives are all in thrall to the boss, and spend their times double-guessing him or her, and trying to remember what he/she said and then applying them to the script, whether it was useful or not. They're all in fear for their jobs.
If the story's interesting and it's a compelling script, I'd be thrilled to be a part of it.
I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again.
Sometimes we'll only get one script in a year that we want to make that we feel is good enough.
I wouldn't know a good script if it bit me in the face.
The final product in a play is not just the written word. It's the production, the performance. The script is, of course, a very important piece; but it's only one element. Ultimately, yours is one of several voices. People can change your work in a play for better or worse.
I've been in a few films that have been adapted and, as an actor, the amount of resources and things you can gain just from reading the story, as well as the script, are so massive that it's something you just can't put down.
I'm just after the best script I can get.
It's a weird thing when you spend your life trying to find these great scripts and great parts. You are reading scripts, you are traveling the world, you are hassling your agent. You are trying to find that script.
I dropped the script in the fireplace, called my agent and said, they can jail me, sue me, but I'm never acting again, unless I can do something worthwhile.
As far as I know, if you take your time, write a good script and make a good film, then give the audience time, they will accept it.
I tend not to have any references to anything. I just jump into the script in front of me. If you reference too much, you have no idea if the performances are right.
I can't imagine directing from someone else's script.
It is important to be financially savvy when you turn producer. As a director, you just need to have a good script in hand.
The worst is when I talk myself into something. Sometimes you take things because you want to work with a certain actor, or you want to work with a director, even if the script or the part's not that great.
My journey has practically been a typical Hindi film script. I was a boy from a small town who wanted to make a future in dancing. Everyone though that I won't be able to do anything.
For the last four or five years, I had been in the position where I didn't have to take a pilot. I took this one because the script and the people were terrific. It never frightened me. As we were doing the pilot, I could tell that it was working.
I read the script for 'Guncrazy' in 1985 and loved it because it was one of the few scripts I'd come across that revolved around a strong female character.
While I don't script and I don't use other performers, I think my taste for underlying precision gives me something in common with Allan and George Brecht.
